Google Maps is far more than a tool we use just for finding our way around, and there’s a huge discovery component to it as well — who hasn’t scrolled around Maps looking for a new restaurant to try out? And while the standard overhead view is plenty useful, sometimes you want to really immerse yourself in a place with a first-person Street View experience. So far, though, navigating Maps in Street View has come at a price, as you wouldn’t see those discoverable markers for businesses and points of interest. That could finally be about to change, as Google tests an AR-style overlay that bring place markers to Street View.
In what seems to be a very limited test, some users are seeing the same sort of location markers from the overhead Maps view appear in Street View. Hovering over these markers reportedly displays the location name and offers a snippet of information, while clicking opens up the side bar for full details.
Even for those who are seeing these now, the markers appear limited to certain larger cities, so there’s clearly some curation going on here. We’ve also only heard reports of this interface appearing on Street View in a desktop browser, so as of yet it’s not clear what Google’s plans for mobile might be. Given the availability of AR Live View navigation on Android, though, it seems like a pretty safe bet we’ll eventually get something along that line.
